


Coming Up from the Dungeons

by Max_Colby



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Max_Colby/pseuds/Max_Colby





	Coming Up from the Dungeons

1 September 1993

Diadophis really didn’t want to be here. If he’d said it out loud, of course, his parents would have listened and he’d be at Ilvermorny like everyone else. When they had asked him if he wanted to go to Hogwarts, he said yes. Now that he was on his way, Dee was too acutely aware of the sacrifices they made that he dare not back out. He simply resolved to make the most of it and keep his chin up.

That was before the train stopped and the lights went out. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know what was going on, and he should be scared. Everyone else around him just hid it well.

There was the Scottish girl Joanna, a raven-haired first year who had spent the last fifteen minutes hugging her knees. There was another first-year girl Marie whose vowels sounded like they came from the back of her sinuses - she was pressed to the window trying to narrate what she saw in the darkness. It was mostly species of trees. Then there was third-year Anthony whose eyes simply flicked around the compartment like he was chasing ghosts.

“Does it always do this?” Dee asked Anthony. The blonde older boy shook his head.

“I’ve never seen this happen. We should be pulling into Hogwarts by now.” Anthony turned his attention back to Joanna, trying to soothe the timid first-year.

The lights flicked back to life and the train groaned forward. At least they were back on the way.

—-

Dee liked water.

No, Dee liked the sea. During the day. From the shoreline. He could simply go without a pitch black lake during a chilly Highland night.

He whispered back to Joanna, who had happened to make it into the same boat he had. “What are those things flying overhead?”

“Dementors,” she responded in a thin voice and distant stare. “They usually guard Azkaban.” Then, somehow more haunted, she whispered “They shouldn’t be here.”

—-

By the time Sorting was through and the feast started, rumors had spread up and down the Slytherin table about the Dementors. Dee gleaned what he could - one Harry Potter had been attacked by the Dementors and fainted. They were here protecting Hogwarts from a man - and former Gryffindor- named Sirius Black.

The three friends he’d started to make were gone - Marie had joined Anthony with the Ravenclaws, and Joanna had gone to the Hufflepuffs. Dee was alone with people who all seemed related. Astoria had a third-year sister. Thomas’s family had a fifth-year cousin. Dee, however, had an American accent and a name people asked him to repeat three times.

—-

31 October 1993

The dungeon dorm isn’t the most comfortable. It’s damp. It’s gloomy even on the brightest days. The green light makes even the healthiest tan seem like a sickly pallor.

But it’s better than the ancient, rutted, frigid floor of the Great Hall.

Dee was almost excited though - at least it was a change of pace. Even though they were supposed to stay with their houses, Dee found a place on the edge of the Slytherins in whispering distance of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. He could make out Joanna’s tiny voice not that far away, and he spent the night trading conspiracy stories with Marie.

—-

9 April 1994

Dee didn’t have much of a head for heights, but absence from a Quidditch match could be more embarrassing than he wanted to bear. Still, he had no love for Gryffindor and was disappointed with the match as he slouched back toward the dungeons. “Perhaps we deserve to lose, because of that trick Malfoy played” he confided to Joanna as they walked a few paces together. She nodded silently and smiled to him with a shrug as she said a polite goodbye and veered toward the kitchens.

——

7 June 1994

Whispers of Lupin’s monthly illnesses had turned out to be lycanthropy. Dee was shocked since he seemed such a mild-mannered professor. Oh well, he thought. Turns out former Gryffindors can be more than murderers like Black. They can be lying monsters too. The thought warmed him. In the course of the entire year he had not spoken to a single Gryffindor other than to ask for ingredients in potions. That maroon monolith seemed to have paid him no mind either - a state of affairs with which he was quite at peace.

——

18 August 1994

Only Dee and his father had been in the tent when the screaming began.

Dee didn’t even want to be here, but his dad’s boss couldn’t use his tickets, so they had crossed the ocean early to see the World Cup finals. They didn’t count on a riot.

“Get down and stay down” Mr. Ashaway hissed at Dee as he headed out of the tent, wand ready. A good lad, Dee kept his head down until the tent was blown off of him. Hooded and masked figures were levitating people and torturing them, while others were simply causing havoc. With no shelter left, Dee seized his own wand and ran.

It was no more than a few yards before he tripped on an exposed tent peg and went through the air - though somewhat less gracefully than Victor Krum. An unhealthy sound met him when he collided, wand-arm first, with the earth.

Lying there in pain, Dee heard wild cackling approaching him. The mask between him and the laughter was strangely beautiful - intricate in a way that only magic could provide - and riveted him to the spot. Only a green flash saved him from greater torment as the masked assailants seemed to flee as one.

Rolling on the ground, his arm in agony, Dee caught sight of a coiled serpent and skull in the sky. It felt like Slytherin had come to protect him at last.

—-

19 August 1994

“Nobody hurt?!” Mrs. Ashaway squawked, flinging the Daily Prophet across the recovery room in St. Mungo’s. “Look at him!”

“Yes ma’am,” reassured a doctor with the patience of a saint, “it seems the ministry official was unaware of your son’s injury. Nor could he be expected to be if —“

“How could he not know?! Diadophis was in the mud for nearly an hour before he was found!”

Dee’s arm, masterfully repaired for the past thirty minutes now, pulled up a sheet over his head until the whole affair was over.

——

30 October 1994

There was a bit of a chill in the air, but Dee didn’t feel it as much as he felt his heart beating in his throat. He knew magic, but he never felt whatever this emotion was. A more mature person would call it infatuation, but Dee thought it was real magic.

Never before had he wanted to speak French, but one girl from Beauxbatons changed his mind with a glance. He didn’t know her name but a slight look and a meek smile made his heart flutter.

——

3 November 1994

Marie looked at the badge Dee handed her. “The charm on it is really something” she whispered to avoid Professor McGonagall’s hearing. It failed to be soft enough.

“It is that indeed,” the Professor said from two yards away. Dee and Marie jumped in their seats. “However, this is a class and support for Diggory or Potter is not on the syllabus. I hope Ravenclaw needn’t lose points for you to understand that, Ms. Houghton.”

Dee apologized before Marie could get a word out. “I’m sorry Professor, the badge is mine. I distracted her.”

A bemused smile curled the Scottish witch’s lip. “A single point for Slytherin, Ashaway, for the honesty.”

——

24 November 1994

He could see her face by the light of dragonfire. He could see her at meals, of course, but the magic was all the greater by dragonfire.

Anthony dug an elbow into his ribs. “Quit staring. You’re out of your depth.”

Dee blushed at being caught staring and looked down quickly. Anthony continued. “She’s a sixth year, for one, and you’ve been staring at her for a month now. You’re being creepy.”

“And she knows it, huh?” Dee muttered under his breath as the field was reset for the second challenger.

“Yes. My advice is forget it. Stick to your studies. Or at least to Girls your own age.”

——

22 December 1994

His trunk packed for Christmas, Dee stared into the Black Lake. He’d studiously avoided any more than glancing at the Beauxbatons girl since Anthony had chastised him. His reward was no invite to the Yule Ball — or at least that’s what Dee kept telling himself. In reality, he was a second year Slytherin and below notice. What’s more, Anthony was right. It’s weird to stare at someone’s whose name you didn’t know. He could have known her name — he’d seen her talk to Marie once or twice — he just never asked. Anthony was right. School was more important.

——

4 January 1995

Professor Hagrid a half-giant? The news flew up and down the Slytherin table as crumpled copies of Rita Skeeter’s article was passed up and down. Dee sided with the faction saying “of course, but so what?”

A Durmstrang boy next to him voiced loud objection. “We have wild giants near my village. We fight them off once or twice a year. Violent creatures.”

——

5 March 1995

“Harry Potter’s Secret Heartache” struck Dee as shocking. The idea that someone as apparently famous as Harry Potter could like someone and not get his way was somewhat calming. He discussed it with Marie on the walk to Potions.

“People have crushes all the time, Dee” she said in an almost clinical tone. “It’s the nature of adolescence. Do you think pining for Claudette was something only you did?”

Marie got three paces ahead of him before Dee could get his jaw from the floor. She looked back at him and laughed — not a cruel laugh mind you, but an understanding laugh. “Come on, she noticed months ago. She thinks it’s sweet, and that you’re very cute. You know she’s way older than us, right?”

“Yeah, I know” he responded. “I just liked looking at her. I get that it’s super weird.”

“It is, but good on you for knocking it off. Anthony told me he talked to you.”

Apparently his crush was the talk of the Ravenclaw common room. At least someone was talking about him.

——

24 June 1995

Amos Diggory’s anguished voice rang in his ears as the Slytherins filed silently back to their common room. Even Malfoy and his thugs were silent.

Dee counted himself lucky to find a common room seat and dropped himself into it while still staring far into the distance. Slowly, conspiratorial whispers of who may or may not have killed Cedric Deggory began to float through the room.


End file.
